


she sees better from a distance

by andibeth82



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Origin Story, Role Reversal, What-If, because I really love Laura, the story where Laura is a SHIELD agent instead of Clint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 13:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10854855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82
Summary: This is the story everyone knows: Clint Barton is SHIELD’s best sniper. Laura Barton is the simple girl who fell into his life and learned to deal with aliens and spies; with secrets and firearms and security.In this story, Laura Martinelli is SHIELD’s best sniper. Clint Barton is the man she falls in love with, and he’s never even heard of SHIELD.





	she sees better from a distance

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea in my head, a role-reversal of sorts that centered on "what if Laura was the SHIELD agent instead of Clint." This is the result.

 

On a cold spring day, Laura Martinelli is plucked out of the vacant apartment she’s sleeping in and a badge is thrust in her face, obscuring her vision.

“Ma’am. My name is Phil Coulson. I need you to come with me.”

Laura with messy hair still full of soot from the firefight she’s been involved in, Laura with blood smeared across her cheek and sleepy eyes, confused and wary but one hundred percent understanding that this is an order she needs to obey, gets out of bed and follows Phil Coulson out the door and into the bright sunlight. She squints at the man standing in front of her, a tall dark-skinned figure in a black suit with an eyepatch, who looks like he’s seen better days himself.

“Miss Martinelli.” The man smiles. “We’ve heard a lot about you. We’d like to offer you a job.”

(Laura isn’t dumb enough to realize she hasn’t made a name for herself, she just hadn’t realized anyone was watching.)

She doesn’t join SHIELD because she needs to find some kind of family -- she had a family, a mother and a father and an older brother who gave her a black eye and her first broken arm, the latter of which she had lied about at the hospital, telling doctors she fell out of a tree. Laura joins SHIELD because she’s skilled and talented. The day that Nick Fury calls her into his office and tells her she’s being officially promoted to field work, Laura’s so ecstatic she takes off in the middle of the day and does three back-to-back whiskey shots to celebrate. When she reaches Level Three, she allows herself an entire weekend at the range where she practices with six different guns and three different bows and arrows. When she reaches Level Six, she books an impromptu flight to Bora Bora and spends the week sunning herself on the beach while downing multiple fruity drinks with colorful umbrellas.

This Laura, the one who works at SHIELD, learns how to shoot a bow and arrow when a recruit hands her the weapon during training and she excels by making two bullseyes while everyone else misses the target.

This Laura, the one who works at SHIELD, has a best friend named Sharon even though neither of them will admit that out loud because it’s hard to have any kind of personal relationship at work. Sharon’s aunt is Peggy Carter, one of SHIELD’s founders and a bad-ass, no-nonsense woman who scares everyone who doesn’t know her, though whenever Laura visits their home in upstate New York, she’s obligated to call her “Aunt Peggy” and always greeted with a genuine smile.

This Laura, the one who works at SHIELD, has been doing her job for a comfortable seven years when Fury puts her on detail in Verona. This Laura doesn’t expect the trip to be anything special, and assumes she’ll have all her paperwork done and piled on Fury’s desk before the patented 48 hours are up.

This Laura finds herself distracted when a man sits down in the seat next to her at the bar and mumbles, “Christ, I need a drink.”

She doesn’t pay attention at first, because engaging with anyone outside of her mission is always risky. Something compels her to look, though, and she realizes she likes what she sees. Sandy, windswept hair. Crooked lips. Scars around the lids of his eyes. The man grins when he catches her looking, his teeth stained crimson.

“Looks bad, right? Nah, I’ll be fine. Got caught on the wrong side of the tracks while I was walking over here, hence the drink. Ah, there we go.” His face relaxes into a painful, even more crooked smile as a glass appears in front of him. “Whiskey soda?”

Laura blinks, giving herself time to come up with a response. “I don’t really drink,” she says, gesturing to the water she’s been nursing. It’s a lie, of course, but she’s on the job. She’s expected to lie, no matter the cost.

“Oh. Alright, then.” He shrugs. “Anyway, I’m Clint.”

“Hi,” Laura responds, not bothering to add her name. She waits to see if he’ll push her about that. He doesn’t, and simply goes on drinking. Laura thinks it’s noble that he wants to talk, especially since she can tell he’s nursing a bruised rib and a sprained wrist in addition to what must be a sore jaw.

Six months after this exchange, Laura meets the same man when she’s walking through the crowded streets of Versailles. She’s buying fruit, and bumps into him when she turns to reach for her purse.

“I know you!” he announces, his face lighting up in delight. The scars are still there and his hair is longer and a little more unkempt, but this time, there’s no painful smile.

“I’m not sure,” Laura responds, because this time she’s wearing a red wig to hide her brown hair. She smoothes down the stray strands and tries to avoid his eyes.

“No, I totally know you,” the man crows. _Clint, his name is Clint, she remembers._ “Hey, wanna grab a drink? Or, wait. I forgot you don’t drink --”

“I drink,” Laura answers shortly, and Clint flinches in surprise.

“Oh. Okay. Well, you wanna grab something, then? I know a place nearby.”

This Laura, the one who works at SHIELD, knows these things about herself: She’s always been cautious, but not so much that she’s a square. She’s always been curious, but not so much that she’s broken the law. She’s always known that being cautious _and_ curious would work together one day to get her in trouble.

She goes with Clint and he takes her to a small speakeasy. She sits down and orders a jack and coke, and spills a little bit on her jeans. When she curses about it in Russian, he throws wobbly-sounding Russian back at her out of thin air and she’s immediately endeared by the way he stumbles over letters that sound like he’s learned them phonetically. (Then she reminds herself that not _everyone_ spent two months in deep cover in the Ukraine.)

“So what brings you to the City of Lights?” she finally asks once she’s had enough to drink, but not nearly enough to cause her to lose her edge.

“Do you want the real answer, or the one that sounds good?”

Laura purses her lips. “Surprise me.”

Clint grins. “Okay. Well, the one that sounds good is that I’m studying.” He fiddles with the straw stuck in his glass. “Got a scholarship at the University of Strasbourg, but, uh…”

“But?” Laura supplies curiously.

“Well, that’s the real answer. I kinda lost it after I refused to take the boring classes.” He shrugs sheepishly, and sucks on his drink more. “So I took a year off and did some backpacking, and learned a little bit on my own, and came back here to regroup. Why are _you_ here?”

Laura inclines her head. “Do you want the real answer, or the one that sounds good?”

Clint laughs, a rusty lawnmower-esque sound that doesn’t quite fit his off-kilter persona. “Surprise me.”

“The one that sounds good is that I’m on vacation,” she says. “The real answer is that I’m on a secret mission.”

Clint stares at her, and then laughs again, and Laura laughs along with him.

“When does this secret mission end?”

Laura tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “Why do you care so much?”

“Well.” Clint smiles. “My _big_ secret is that I’m actually from New York. Going home in another month or so, if you’re looking for another adventure. But first, you actually have to tell me your name. I mean, for all I know, you might be a hologram or some sort of android.”

“My name is Laura.” She says the words before she can stop herself, because dammit, she likes him. It’s a problem.

She’s definitely in trouble.

This Laura goes home and tells Sharon, “I met someone” while they’re in the middle of sparring. Sharon grins and wipes sweat from her upper lip.

“A girl or a guy?”

Laura shakes her head. “A guy. We met in Verona. Then I randomly just saw him again in Versailles. We went for drinks.”

“Shut the _fuck_ up,” Sharon replies in awe as she throws a right hook. Laura ducks out of the way just in time. “Does he know where you work?”

“Of course not.” Laura straightens up. “I’ll probably never see him again, anyway.”

“Never say never,” Sharon teases. “I mean, you did meet twice in six months. That’s a sign from the universe.”

This Laura rolls her eyes at Sharon’s comments, and later that evening, stops by for a visit with Aunt Peggy.

“I like a guy,” she admits, because unlike Sharon, Peggy will understand when Laura says she can’t stop thinking about a random civilian with scraggly hair and a cute smile. Peggy had fallen in love with someone outside of her comfort zone, someone different, and he watches over her from the fireplace mantle like a guardian angel.

“And?” Peggy regards her carefully. “You know I’m going to need more than that, Laura.”

Laura smiles half-heartedly and puts down her tea. “And, I want to see him again, or at least find him. I know I can. I have his name. But I’m a SHIELD agent, and he’s...normal. I shouldn’t get involved.”

“I think some normal would be good for you,” Peggy says smartly. “I know some normal was good for me. And him.”

 _Him_ is Captain America. _Him_ is Steve Rogers, the man who went into the ice and never came out. Laura has tried to wrap her head around what it must have been like to have a relationship with Captain America, but she’s never been successful.

“It sounds like you’re trying to find me a boyfriend, Aunt Peggy. Or at least a one-night stand.”

Peggy smiles widely. “Laura, would that really be such a bad thing?”

And this Laura thinks, _no, it probably wouldn’t_.

 

***

 

This Laura goes home, pours three glasses of wine, and researches Clint using the information she remembers. Slightly tipsy, she talks herself out of calling him when she finds his telephone number, reminding herself that this is a civilian, and not a mark or someone who would understand her spying. Instead, she decides to wait until the weekend. She’s off from traveling and in lieu of her usual gym and errands routine, she takes the train down to Bed-Stuy and casually starts traipsing around his neighborhood.

Laura circles the block three times before she sees people come in and out of his falling-apart building, and ten times before she finally sees him come out. He’s carrying a large garbage bag and wearing ratty-looking jeans, and she watches from across the street as he disappears around the corner, presumably going to the back or side of the building where the dumpster is located. She looks quickly before crossing the street, and by the time she’s walking up to his door, he’s on his way back with empty hands. Clint does a double take when he sees her, but recovers quickly.

“Remember me?”

Clint blinks. “Yeah, of course. How did you know where I lived?”

“How did you know I would be in Versailles?” Laura challenges.

“Serendipity.” Clint shoves his hands in his pockets. “Uh, look, I’d invite you up but the place is kinda messy. Coffee?”

“Sure,” Laura agrees, because honestly, she has no idea why she showed up here in the first place. Everything about Laura’s life at SHIELD, up until she stumbled into the man in front of her, has always been calculated and careful.

“Cool.” Clint smiles that easy smile she’s becoming used to. “You like lattes, right?”

As it turns out, Laura loves lattes.

 

***

 

This Laura watches the news when she’s ten years old. There’s a press conference going on, and a man named Alexander Pierce is receiving something called the Nobel Peace Prize but politely declining the honor. This Laura is fascinated, and can’t take her eyes of the screen.

“Laura, come outside,” her mother calls loudly, her voice aggravated and tense. “Don’t watch so much television. You’ll make bad decisions.”

Laura goes outside because she always obeys her mother. When she plays, other girls in the neighborhood pretend to be damsels in distress.

Laura grabs a shield.

Years later, this Laura walks across the stage and accepts her high school diploma. She’s still deciding where to go to college. She decides to major in government. She remembers her mother’s words -- “you’ll make bad decisions” -- and joins the Air Force to work in communications and radio. Five years after that, she decides she wants to strike out on her own. She ditches the Air Force and takes a job as a vigilante of sorts, using her skills to help private investigators with undercover work and code breaking, until Phil Coulson knocks down her door and offers her a job with SHIELD.

This Laura remembers her mother’s words -- “you’ll make bad decisions” -- and decides to date Clint.

 

***

 

This Laura is Agent Martinelli -- at work, in the field, on the phone.

This Laura is simply Laura -- with Clint, in his arms, in his bed.

She finally does see his apartment, the second time she comes over. It’s a small converted loft, and it’s definitely due for some home improvement, but it does come with a large rooftop that Laura and Clint like to sit on late at night.

“I had a picture of Captain America on my wall,” Clint randomly says one night, playing with an empty beer bottle. “I wanted to be like him.”

“Oh?” The sun has set hours ago and it’s dark and cold, and Laura still hasn’t told him that she works for SHIELD. She thinks this is probably a bad time to tell Clint that her best friend’s great aunt was Captain America’s girlfriend once upon a time.

“Yeah. I dunno. I never really cared for being popular, but I always thought it would be cool to be able to throw a shield and fight.”

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Laura admits, avoiding his glance. Clint looks at her strangely, and nods.

“Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

This Laura is the one who suggests they take a walk, because after that, the conversation turns a little tense, and she’s not sure how to make it better. She takes him by the hand and they start walking down the street, winding through some of the more run-down parts of the neighborhood.

The mugger that attempts to cut into their path attacks Laura first, and, well -- Laura thinks _too bad for you_ as she grabs for his arm, twisting him easily to the ground. She’s got no weapons on her, but makes do with her fists and her ankles. As quick as she is, she can’t stop the mugger from slashing a cut clean through Clint’s jacket and ripping his flesh wide open.

“ _Girl_ ,” the mugger spits out, his face sneering as he attempts to egg her on. “Girlie girl trying to protect her precious boyfriend.”

“Yeah, because I really wanted to beat someone up today,” Laura says, flipping him to the ground. “You wanna mess with _this_ girlie girl?” She snarls the words as she drags him up by the collar, her grip iron and firm. The mugger shakes his head quickly and after a moment of contemplation, Laura lets him go. He stumbles down the street the way he came, and Laura takes a moment to compose herself before turning to Clint.

“Jesus Christ,” says Clint, spitting out blood from where he’s fallen and cracked a tooth. He’s holding his arm and his face is pale. “I thought -- how the hell did you know how to fight like that? What the hell do you _do_?”

This Laura sighs, puts up her hair in a no-nonsense bun, and says, “well, since you asked...I work for SHIELD.”

She ignores Clint’s shocked face. She helps him up and takes him back into the apartment and stitches up his arm while he sits on the bed, dripping blood onto the covers.

“You’re a superhero.”

“No,” Laura says with a sigh. “I’m not. I’m an agent.”

Clint shrugs. “You beat up guys and protect people. You’re a superhero to me.”

Laura hides a smile as she concentrates on making a stitch. “I have a feeling you would’ve been just as good beating up that guy if you hadn’t gotten caught off guard.”

This Laura will remember Clint smiling shyly, wincing from pain as she wipes antiseptic on his stitches, falling in love with everything that she knows she’s not -- carefree and naive and genuine. She’ll remember bringing him coffee in bed and snuggling up next to him while the television plays in the background, some HBO special that makes Clint laugh his stupid, cute laugh. She’ll remember ignoring her phone, even though she knows work might be calling, because she likes being here with Clint, and being a part of his normal life.

She shows Clint pictures of Nick Fury looking stoic and strict. She shows Clint pictures of Sharon holding a gun in a black tac suit. (She still doesn’t tell Clint about Peggy.)

Two weeks later, even though his arm is still healing, Laura will take pity on his self-deprecation and bare knowledge of self-defense and ask him, “have you ever used a gun before?”

Clint raises an eyebrow. “Do I look like I’ve used a gun before?”

 _You look like you’ve been shot out of a cannon_ , Laura thinks, because he hasn’t showered in four days and his hair is matted and dirty, and there are fresh scars on his hands that keep blistering.

This Laura teaches Clint how to use a gun, and later, a bow and arrow. This Laura teaches Clint about spy language and what it means when they have an “0-8-4” and what different levels mean for different agents, and she explains why Fury wears an eye patch.

“Spies take vacations, right?” Clint asks one day while he’s cooking dinner. Laura looks up from where she’s been reading, her feet curling into the ratty couch.

“Yes,” she responds. “Why are you asking?”

Clint smiles that crooked, perfect smile. “Just curious.”

 

***

 

The mugging isn’t the first time she has to teach Clint about the dangerous life of SHIELD. He stays up later than he needs to, sometimes pushing himself to the brink of exhaustion, just to make sure she gets home okay from missions. He calls her more than she expects him to when she’s on the road. The first time she comes home with a gunshot wound, Clint cries when she walks through the door, and even though it’s only a flesh wound Laura remembers how his face looked, how worry had flooded his features with so much strength that she thought he was going to vomit.

Their first vacation together is a small getaway in Seville.

“I know a place here,” Laura says as they stroll along the beach, hand in hand. She’s got a brace wrapped around her right wrist from too many strains from her bow.

“Oh, yeah?” Clint looks interested, and squints at her through cheap sunglasses. “What, like a secret place?”

“Depends on what you mean by secret,” Laura teases with a wink.

They’re staying in a hotel just off the water, but Laura takes Clint to an old bolthole that she knows from SHIELD, one that Sharon told her about when they first met at recruitment. It’s small and dirty and there are dead cockroaches by the door, but Laura doesn’t care, because there’s a big bed not unlike the one in Clint’s apartment.

This Laura knows how to read Clint when he looks at her; she knows what it means when he lets his tongue sit between his lips for too long and when the muscles in his cheek get a little too tight. This Laura knows, from years of being in the field, what men are like in bed. But she also knows she’s never actually experienced soft, gentle, passionate sex before, because she’s never cared about the person she’s sleeping with. This Laura knows that Clint has had his share of women, but that he’s entirely intimidated by a SHIELD agent making love to him, and so she goes slow until they establish a rhythm that allows him to feel comfortable.

“Why do you do this?”

Laura tucks her head into his arm, her breathing labored from her orgasm. “Because it’s the only thing I know.”

Clint clears his throat quietly. “What if you can’t live a normal life while you’re with SHIELD?”

Laura raises her head, because she’s never thought about it. Then again, she never thought she’d be with anyone who wasn’t part of her job.

She thinks of Peggy. It’s an unfair comparison, because Peggy never got to be with Steve when it would have mattered, outside of SHIELD.

“I love my job.”

The pattern in Clint’s breathing changes from content to unsettled; Laura feels the beats and the way in which his stomach rises and falls under her hand.

“Do you love me?”

“Of course I do.” Laura raises her head and finds his eyes, and she kisses him long and hard, because she doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.

He asks her to marry her twice. The first time is in Puerto Rico, when they’re sitting in front of a fire at dinner.

“Marry me,” he says suddenly, no ring and no pretense and no formal declaration, just a statement that’s entirely indicative of how their relationships has evolved. This Laura swallows, staring at the bloody flames licking the wood in front of her.

“I can’t.”

She doesn’t see Clint’s face fall, but she can imagine it. “Why not?”

“Because.” Laura pauses. “Because you’re you, and I’m me, and I’m...I’m a SHIELD agent.”

“And SHIELD agents can’t get married?”

Laura wants to tell him that’s not the point. Laura wants to tell him that the point is, she can’t drag him into this life. It’s not fair. What Laura loved about Clint was that he was innocent and safe. He shouldn’t be like her, all hard edges and iron fists.

“It’s complicated,” she decides finally, and now she does look at him. Clint’s face is a mirror of her own, a frown and a distinct sadness that can’t be hidden.

“Okay,” he says, sounding resigned, twisting their fingers together. “Well, whatever. I still love you.”

The second time he asks, it’s less blunt. They’ve been dating for a year and a half and sleeping together for longer, and they’re sitting on the couch in Clint’s apartment drinking tea while a thunderstorm wreaks havoc outside. Clint gets up to go to the bathroom, and when he comes out, he stands in front of her and takes a deep breath.

“I really want to marry you,” he says quietly and Laura looks up in surprise, ink smudged across her nose from where she’s rubbed her eye after writing out the shopping list. His green eyes are clouded with the smallest amount of trepidation.

“For god’s sake, Laura. _Say_ something.”

This time, Laura smiles and says yes. The ring comes later, a simple diamond set on a rose-gold band, and Clint gives it to her when she comes home from work nursing a sprained ankle from sparring.

“You’ll never see him again, right?” Sharon asks when Laura shows off her ring during a visit with Peggy. Laura kicks her in the shin.

“This is _not_ what I planned on, Carter.”

“Neither was Captain America,” Peggy announces from across the room, effectively shutting both of them down.

Clint and Laura get married in the middle of the woods, under a canopy of trees, in the middle of fall. Peggy officiates the ceremony and Laura kisses Clint while the birds sing above them.

“So you need a house,” Fury says when she drops the bomb that she’s gotten married, leaving out the most important parts -- Clint was a civilian, Clint wasn’t SHIELD, Clint could be a liability.

“Not really,” Laura says. “We can live in his apartment. It’s in Bed-Stuy. It’s not ideal, but it’ll work, for now.”

“For now,” Fury repeats.

“Yes,” Laura agrees. “For now.”

Their new home is stuffy and cramped and she knows they need someplace bigger, but there’s some sort of novelty that comes with living like college students. They sleep on top of each other in the big bed, they walk in on each other in the bathroom, and Clint learns how to clean Laura’s wounds when she comes home too tired to go to a medical wing or the ER.

Laura is Level Six at SHIELD and applies for a promotion to be Level Seven. Fury denies it, on the grounds that she needs to establish herself in the field a little more. Laura’s fine with this answer, but then she hears that Brock Rumlow, who is definitely not on her level, has been tapped to lead the STRIKE team. Laura comes home angry, throwing her shoes at the door while Clint looks at her in surprise.

“I didn’t get the promotion,” she says shortly before he can ask, and Clint frowns.

“What the fuck? Why?”

“Because,” Laura answers in the same curt tone. “I’m a girl.”

“What, like SHIELD has never seen girls before?”

Laura, who has poured herself whiskey, slams her glass down on the counter island and Clint sighs. “Okay, bad joke. Sorry. Look, just do what they ask -- wait a few weeks, and work hard, and try again. I know you. You’re the best thing they have there. And Fury likes you, right? I believe in you, Laur.”

Laura grumbles something about not quite understanding, but that night, she lets Clint make her feel better by doing all the work during sex and she has to admit, when she wakes up, her mood has improved. She goes to work with Clint’s words in her head and continues fighting and writing reports and training. Clint keeps learning and waiting and watching, as if he’s trying to figure out what kind of life he’s allowed himself into.

When Laura comes home one day with a girl who’s been shot in the stomach, Clint doesn’t hesitate to run over and help without question, supporting her as she bleeds onto their newly washed hardwood floor.

“Jesus, Laura -- who _is_ she?”

Laura doesn’t answer, ripping apart a piece of her shirt with her teeth and using it to staunch bleeding.

“I was covering my engineer,” the girl murmurs, and Laura makes a face.

“I had it taken care of on the way over here, but the stitches split when we were walking up the stairs...shit.” She presses the cloth of her shirt harder against the wound and Clint winces out of habit.

“What do we do with her? I mean, you can’t take her to work, can you?”

Laura gives Clint a scathing look. “No, Clint. I can’t take her to work. She’s going to stay here. Run a bath or something, okay?”

Clint runs a hot bath and then makes up the couch with fluffy pillows and blankets. After Laura has rubbed dirt and blood off the girl’s body, she re-stitches her wound, and Clint helps Laura make the girl comfortable on the sofa.

“What happened?” Clint hisses afterwards after he makes a pot of coffee. “I thought you were going to Odessa.”

“I did,” Laura says grimly. She puts blood-stained hands on her face, leaving faint marks on her skin. “I was on my way back from my mission when I saw her...she was caught in a shoot-out. I saw the whole thing. I couldn’t leave her, Clint.”

Clint puts his lips together. “You don’t even know her name.”

“Natasha,” interrupts the weak voice from the couch. Laura turns around and Clint raises an eyebrow.

“Natasha what?”

Natasha coughs weakly. “Romanoff.”

Natasha stays on their couch and in their apartment for a month. Clint’s not sure how he feels about it, but Laura convinces him that she’s good, and she’s kind, and she needs a home. When Natasha recovers from her injury, Laura brings her to a meeting that she doesn’t tell her about, and afterwards, Natasha stands in the elevator looking completely out of her element.

“SHIELD.”

“Yes,” Laura says. “I think you could fit in here, judging from what I saw in Odessa. I mean, if you’re willing to give up that part of you that gets a little trigger happy sometimes.”

Natasha smiles faintly. “I appreciate it, Laura. I just...I’m not sure why they would want a girl like me.”

Laura smiles knowingly, touching Natasha’s forehead. “Trust me. I know _exactly_ why they would want a girl like you.”

Sharon is still Laura’s best friend, but Natasha becomes Laura’s partner, in more ways than one. Natasha is the first one who hears about the house that Fury and Hill are helping to set up for Laura and Clint, and she spills the beans to Laura while they’re on a mission in Portland.

“A house?” Laura glances at Natasha, and Natasha pushes flaming hair out of her green eyes.

“Yes. I walked in on the conversation. I don’t think they even knew I was there until I opened the door...whatever. Ask him yourself if you don’t believe.” She pauses to pull out her gun and shoot at the sky, and Laura turns in time to watch a body fall cleanly from the rooftop.

Laura finds out that Natasha is right, and that Fury does have a house for them -- a SHIELD set-up of sorts, in that the organization finds it and allows them to live in it for free, provided that Laura and Clint pay for furniture and upkeep. They arrive via quinjet on a chilly, drab day in March, and Laura immediately takes out her bow and shoots at the nearest tree. Clint makes a pot of coffee in the portable machine he’s brought, stands on the porch holding the warm cup between calloused fingers, and watches her with a fond smile.

It’s an adjustment living far away from work and a busy, functioning city, but Laura does her best. Clint gets a job at the local diner and interacts daily with the kids and families; he wipes down counters and carries coffee pots back and forth and sits with the runaways and burnouts that end up smoking and breaking bottles on the front steps at midnight on a weekend. When Laura’s away, he gets weekend gigs playing guitar at a small dive bar close to the house.

Laura works cases with Natasha, and one day, on her way out the door to catch a quinjet to the farm, she notices the lights are still on in their shared office.

“Natasha?” Laura pushes the door open, blinking tiredly. “What are you doing?”

“Working, obviously.” Natasha straightens up and tosses her hair. “What, a girl can’t work overtime?”

Laura purses her lips. “Go home. This report isn’t needed until Tuesday, and it’s late.”

This time, it’s Natasha who purses her lips. “It’s fine. I’m not exactly in a rush to get back to the dirtbag motel.”

“You --” Laura stops, her brow creasing in puzzlement. “I thought you were going to find an apartment.”

Natasha snorts quietly. “Yeah, funny thing. When you have a life like mine, you don’t exactly have the best credit score when it comes to renting. Even in the shittiest areas.”

“SHIELD can’t help you?” Laura asks, before seeing the tell-tale look on Natasha’s face. She hadn’t asked. Of course she hadn’t asked. Natasha wouldn’t dare ask Nick Fury or Maria Hill to help her find a place to live; she was too proud to do that and she had only been working there for two years.

“Come home with me,” Laura decides, leaning against the doorway. Natasha’s brow creases in curiosity, but she doesn’t look up.

“To where?”

“Iowa, of course. Come on. I have it on good authority my ride is leaving in ten minutes. I can even tell you that the pilot would be happy to have a passenger.”

Natasha sighs quietly, putting down her pen. “Laura, I don’t know. It’s your home. Clint’s there, and --”

“And I’m sure he’d be happy to see you,” Laura decides firmly. “Of course, if you’d prefer the dirtbag motel, I’m happy to leave you to your cockroach infested bed…”

As she trails off, Natasha rolls her eyes, getting up. “Fine,” she says curtly, grabbing her coat. “But you’re flying.”

Laura grins. “Yes, ma’am.”

 

***

 

Natasha starts coming to the farm and staying at the farm. She’s there when Clint trips over the rusty wheelbarrow and sprains his ankle by accident, she’s there when Laura wakes up in the middle of the night with food poisoning from undercooked meat and throws up in the hallway on her way to the bathroom. She’s there for the first soft snow of winter and the first full blossoming flowers of spring; she’s there when Laura takes her first positive pregnancy test after realizing she’s missed her period.

Natasha visits more and more and more. She helps Clint and Laura with groceries, and things like painting the house and buying groceries. Laura and Natasha go over reports in the kitchen while Clint eyes them warily, never asking about what they’re doing even though Laura knows he wants to. Late at night, when everyone has gone to bed, Laura pulls out her files and tells Clint about her jobs, about someone named Tony Stark and about how a man in a metal suit makes her realize she’s only human.

(Clint kisses her and tells her yes, she’s only human, but she’s got a heart and can wield a bow and arrow better than anyone.)

When Cooper Barton is born, Laura is in the middle of teaching a training course at headquarters. Clint has relocated back to New York since Laura’s gotten too pregnant to travel, and after her water breaks, she’s rushed to the nearest hospital with Clint on her heels. Natasha joins them after Cooper has been pushed out of Laura’s body, and cries over her partner’s newest person to love.

SHIELD grants Laura a month of leave after her pregnancy, in part because Natasha marches into Fury’s office and demands (sweetly) that Laura be given time with her new baby or else she’ll get rid of his other eye. Because Laura is off-duty, it means that she can’t accept Fury’s assignment to watch over Tony Stark in his semi-destructive state, so Natasha takes the job. Back in Iowa, Laura doesn’t sleep, and Clint jokes that her days as a SHIELD agent have made her more than qualified for taking care of someone who screams and cries without using words.

Cooper Barton gets used to his stay-at-home dad and his working mom. Clint buys him toys and takes him to the park and brings him home dessert from the diner, and Laura brings home trinkets from faraway lands and twisted ankles and scars. At night, Clint walks in on Laura crying while she rocks Cooper to sleep, and he pauses outside the door trying to figure out what he can say to make it better.

This Laura looks up with tear-stained eyes that tell Clint _I can’t do this anymore_ and Clint nods, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“Take a break,” he urges when Cooper has finally gone to sleep. Laura puts her head on his shoulder, her eyes red and puffy.

“I can’t. I have a job.”

Clint looks at the bow and arrow stashed in the corner of the room, and shakes his head. “You have more than one job, Laur.”

Nick Fury shows up at the house two days later. Laura doesn’t yell at Clint for calling him behind her back, she just glares at him with a look that means he won’t be getting any for awhile despite her post-pregnancy hormones.

“I’m putting together something called the Avengers Initiative.” Fury leans back in the kitchen chair as Laura bounces Cooper on her knee.

“And?” Laura asks bluntly. “Natasha didn’t say anything about this.”

“I haven’t asked Natasha yet,” Fury responds smoothly. “I’m asking you.”

Fury gives Laura a lot of information and a few days to think things over. Laura plays with Cooper, and takes him into town with Clint, and at night, she sits alone with her thoughts while he takes care of their crying child.

“I think you should do it,” Clint says, two days after Fury’s visit. He’s sitting at the table chopping vegetables for dinner, shirt off, and he looks completely relaxed and content despite the fact Laura knows his joints are killing him from working overtime to compensate for all the money they’ve needed to spend on their new baby.

This Laura looks at Clint, and doesn’t need to ask why, because she sees it in his face: _I believe in you._

“There is, of course, a condition,” he continues. Laura looks up with a furrowed brow.

“A condition?”

“Yes.” Clint nods. “I know I’m pretty much a civilian nobody who married a SHIELD agent and I don’t get to be privy to anything that goes on between you and Natasha at work. I get that. But if you do this Avengers thing, you tell me everything. Because if anything ever happens, I need to know that I can do something to help. Or that there’s someone I know that can help.”

“You know Fury,” Laura points out. “And Maria Hill.”

“Laura.” Clint’s voice turns serious. “Be an Avenger, but that’s my condition.”

Laura looks at her son and his smiling face, and thinks of the fact that he’ll see a female superhero with a bow and arrow one day on television and get to tell people _that’s my mommy_ , and her eyes fill with tears.

“Okay,” she allows, hugging her son, and Clint looks up and smiles at her with all the love in the world.

 

***

 

 _You have heart,_ Loki says when he comes through the portal and presses a glowing scepter to Laura’s chest, right underneath her ribcage, the same place Clint had once placed his hand while uttering the same exact words in an entirely different situation.

This Laura looks at Loki with eyes that burn blue, and thinks of Cooper and Clint before she blocks them out completely. This Laura remembers, before Loki takes hold of her brain, what she was told in training.

_If you’re ever compromised and can’t give your superiors a clear sign that you need help, rely on your skills to show them what your words can’t._

This Laura puts her gun back in her holster and compartmentalizes, fighting off Loki’s hold, and shoots to miss when she has to fend off Maria Hill. When Loki probes her mind and asks her to give up the most intimate parts of her, she gives up Natasha instead of Clint and Cooper and the farm. When Natasha punches her out on the helicarrier, fist meeting flesh, she’s more thankful than relieved.

The Battle of New York leaves Laura scarred and limping, shooting her bow from rooftops and narrowly avoiding being killed by flying aliens and falling debris. Clint calls her the moment the news cameras stop rolling, the moment the last shawarma bite is swallowed, the moment the alien portal closes.

“Jesus, Laura, fucking talk to me,” Clint implores, and his voice shaking and hysterical. “Laura, please, Natasha told me everything. Just tell me that it’s you.”

Laura swallows down a cry as Natasha picks another shard of glass out of her arm. “It’s me,” she whispers, and Clint lets out a strangled sob.

“Natasha told me...she said you were compromised.”

“I was,” Laura says, struggling to keep her composure intact. “But I’m not anymore.”

She sends Loki back into space, assures Fury and Hill she’s okay, and accepts her mandatory, no questions asked time off. She doesn’t let herself break down until she comes home. Natasha walks her through the door, and Clint jumps up from where he’s sitting with Cooper and reading on the couch.

“Mommy!” Cooper runs on unsteady toddler legs towards Laura, who scoops him up, injuries and all, and cuddles him close. “Mommy, I saw you on the screen!”

Clint walks up and bear hugs her without saying a word. He kisses her hair and mumbles about how she smells like city and ash and how it’s unbecoming. Laura lets her tears fall and lets Cooper sleep with them that night, even though she knows it’s a mistake. Sure enough, five hours after hitting the pillow, Laura wakes up and runs to the bathroom to vomit everything her dreams can’t let her forget.

“You don’t deserve this,” Laura says, fighting back tears when Clint finds her in the bathroom, hugging her legs. “You were normal, you were innocent, you were --”

“Alone, before I met you in Verona,” Clint finishes, kneeling down next to her and stroking her hair. “And now, I’m not. I married a SHIELD agent who shoots a bow and arrow. There are worse things I could regret.”

Laura’s nightmares don’t stop, but eventually, she does sleep through the night again. Cooper draws pictures of aliens and fire and his mother with stringy brown hair shooting arrows and his father standing on a rooftop smiling with huge lips. Laura lets the pictures litter the front of the refrigerator, a story of sorts that acts as a form of therapy.

“He saw you,” Clint says a month later, when Laura’s trying to figure out if she’s okay to go back to work. “Like you said. He saw you on that television, fighting. A female Avenger with a bow and arrow. God, I was so proud that day. I was scared shitless, but I was so proud.”

Laura sips her mug of hot tea as Clint puts his hand on her leg. “He wouldn’t have been proud of what I did with Loki.” She closes her eyes, trying to erase the images from of her mind, and Clint squeezes her thigh.

“It wasn’t you,” he says softly. “You’re allowed to make mistakes. It’s why I love you.”

And Laura opens her eyes looks at Cooper sleeping on the couch, and then turns back to Clint, and she puts her cup down and says, “I want to make another baby.”

 

***

 

“I can’t believe you’re pregnant again,” Natasha says when Laura breaks the news a few months later and shows the positive pregnancy test over meatballs at dinner. “Isn’t one enough? I mean, from what I’ve seen, he’s not exactly an angel.”

“Shut up, Nat,” Clint announces from across the table, and Laura hides a smile. At this point, Natasha’s become so ingrained in their family, she might as well be their own flesh and blood.

Lila Barton is born in the middle of a firefight, except Laura’s not there. She’s watching Natasha on television, laid up in her bed on the farm, when her water breaks. Laura grins, touches her stomach, and mutters, “you’re a little fighter, huh?” before she calls for Clint to drive them to the hospital.

“Alright,” Natasha admits when she finally comes to see the baby, five days after Laura is home from the hospital and Lila is still too small to even open her eyes properly without squinting. She looks at Cooper, who has the epitome of emoji heart eyes as he tickles his baby sister. “She is kinda cute. I take back what I said about one not being enough.”

“Careful,” Laura teases, her voice hoarse from exhaustion and a lingering cold. “If you start liking her so much, we’ll be forced to name the next one after you.”

SHIELD falls the same day that Lila turns a year old. She’s not in the field because Cooper has undergone surgery for appendicitis, so Natasha had gainfully taken her place alongside Steve Rogers, as partners do.

“You’re calling a little late for a happy birthday,” Laura points out when she answers the phone, immediately frowning when Natasha’s retort doesn’t come. “Natasha?”

“SHIELD’s gone,” Natasha says so quickly that Laura almost thinks she’s joking. “Fury’s dead. You’re safe. I’ll call later. Don’t call me. Stay home.”

The line goes dead, and Laura stands frozen in place on the kitchen floor while Lila screams behind her in distress.

“Jesus, Laura, what’s wrong?” Clint asks, running into the kitchen from where he’s been blowing up balloons with Cooper. He looks at his wife and then at his crying daughter, and Laura is so out of it she can’t respond. Clint picks up Lila, bouncing her gently, and grabs Laura’s arm.

“ _Laura_. You’re scaring me. What the hell is going on? Who was on the phone?”

Laura looks at him with tears in her eyes, and puts an unnatural trembling hand on Lila’s head. “It was Nat. She said...she said SHIELD’s gone.”

Laura doesn’t get the whole story, not until the dust has settled in every way and Natasha has come back to the farm with a shoulder wound that looks like it’s far from fully healed.

“Remember Odessa?” Natasha asks as Laura pokes and prods at the injury in the privacy of the bathroom while Clint takes care of their children. “Yeah, apparently I have good luck with soviet slugs.”

Laura fixes her partner up as best she can and gives her painkillers and sends her to sleep in their bedroom instead of on the couch. When she wakes up a few hours later, rested but still weary, she tells Laura and Clint everything: how Rumlow betrayed them, how Pierce was Hydra all along, how Fury faked his death, how Steve almost died while taking out the helicarriers, how the Winter Soldier returned.

This Laura listens and remembers sitting in her living room watching Alexander Pierce turn down the Nobel Peace Prize, and suppresses a chill. A sunglass-clad, injury-ridden Fury arrives at the farm a few weeks later, while Laura is rocking Lila outside on the porch and Clint is helping Cooper ride his new tricycle. Laura’s not quite sure what to say to a not-dead man, so she lets Fury hold her daughter and sits in silence.

“I watched Alexander Pierce turn down the Nobel Peace Prize,” Laura says finally. “Before I was ever at SHIELD. I thought he was a hero. My mom would tell me it was dumb to watch so much television...maybe she had a point. Maybe this is all for nothing, if we’re going to have nothing to stand for, in the end.”

Fury uses one hand to remove his sunglasses, his eyes misty and sad.

“I want you to remember one thing, Laura.” He looks at the baby in his arms, and his smile softens. “Despite what you think, not everything dies.”

 

***

 

Cooper grows up, and starts reading more and asking more questions. He develops a love for baseball, and Laura wonders if it’s because he watched his mother shoot and aim and hit things with a bow and arrow. Cooper accompanies Clint to the diner on weekends, doing his homework at the bar table while Clint serves coffee and pie. Lila grows up, and starts walking and talking. Somewhere along the way, she develops a bond with Natasha, calling her Auntie Nat because she can’t say her full name correctly. The first time she says it out loud, Laura and Clint don’t know what to say, because it comes out of the blue. Then Clint gets on the phone with Natasha and makes Lila talk to her.

Laura takes less missions at SHIELD, and spends more time with her family. She almost forgets she’s a SHIELD agent, until Clint mentions he hasn’t seen her shoot in awhile and that he kind of misses it, so she waits until Cooper and Lila are asleep and then takes him outside with her bow and arrow.

One day, she’s grocery shopping, and has just stuck her credit card into the machine to pay when her phone rings with a message from Clint, who is home babysitting.

“They want you to come in,” he says when she answers, knowing better than to ignore his calls. Laura nods to herself, and finishes shopping.

“Why?” She waits until she’s in the car and can talk more freely, both physically and metaphorically.

“Something about a scepter,” he says, while Laura’s blood runs cold. “By the way, did you get the new Huggies?”

Laura pushes her thoughts away, assures her husband that she did, and drives home trying not to think too much about what Clint’s phone call means. When she gets there, Natasha is sitting on the porch drinking an iced coffee.

“If you’re here, I know it’s bad,” Laura says as she drags some groceries inside, almost attacked by Cooper and Lila as she walks in the door.

“It’s not bad,” Natasha says, following her inside. Clint’s in the kitchen, stirring the beginnings of a stew. “But we do need you to come in.”

“Where?” Laura asks as Lila blows raspberries onto her jeans and giggles. Natasha winces.

“Sokovia.”

This Laura gets hit when Pietro Maximoff blindsides her in the snow, and falls to the ground in pain and agony while Natasha rushes to her side. This Laura calls Clint and boasts, “you won’t even be able to tell the difference,” after Helen Cho fixes her.

“Laura, forget about it. Tony and everyone else can clean this up...just come home,” Clint implores as the sounds of _Sesame Street_ play in the background.

“I can’t,” Laura says regretfully. “Ultron made a mess. We gotta clean it up. I love you.”

This Laura puts an arrow in Wanda Maximoff’s head, even though she feels for the girl who reminds her so much of Natasha. This Laura finds her partner barely conscious, brings her back to the quinjet, and talks her through her pain until it’s clear Natasha doesn’t want to talk anymore.

This Laura realizes her team has no place to go, and so she brings home Natasha, and Tony and Steve and Bruce and Thor. This Laura walks into the house as her children run to her and scream, “mommy!” because they haven’t expected to have Laura back so soon.

“This is my husband, Clint,” Laura says, wrapping her arm around his waist, while Clint smiles a little shyly.

“I, uh, already know all your names.”

Cooper and Lila ask Steve questions, and Clint checks out Laura’s wound upstairs in the bedroom. He runs his hand over the healed flesh, his fingers pressing against an invisible mark, and murmurs, “I can tell the difference,” before kissing her.

During the battle of Sokovia, Laura fights alongside Wanda, who ends up cowering in an abandoned house, terrified and shaking. Laura follows her inside, and asks if she’s up for this, because the city is flying, and she’s got a bow and arrow, and none of this makes sense but she _needs_ Wanda to understand how much her presence is needed, arrow in the head be damned.

This Laura thinks of the way she talks to her children, the way she talks to Cooper and Lila. She kneels down, looks Wanda in the eye, and tries to convince her that this world is something worth fighting for, even if it looks like it’s all going to shit.

This Laura comes home. She hugs Clint, cries about the Maximoff boy that sacrificed himself so she could have a life with her husband and children, and vows that she left her last project in the foyer, where she’d dumped her bow and arrow after she walked through the door.

This Laura stays home and only has the job title of “mom” until she gets a call a year later to come help Wanda, and only then does she walk out the door and leave Clint and Lila and Cooper behind.

“It’s Wanda,” she says apologetically, and Clint nods, because he gets it.

“I know. You’ll come home, though?” He runs a hand through her hair, fingering her long auburn strands. “You did say you were retired.”

Laura smiles and kisses Clint long and hard. “I may not be able to make SHIELD promises anymore, but I’ll come home. I swear.”

This Laura fights at an airport against her partner, and wonders how it all came to this. This Laura gets captured and thrown into an underwater prison with two people she barely knows, while Wanda is kept out of her reach, imprisoned against her will.

“You act like they’ll come,” Sam says from his cell, sounding dejected, after Laura lashes out at Tony Stark for being so arrogant and stupid and _dumb_. “Like anyone will come.”

This Laura runs her hand over her stomach. She’s pregnant again, and she’ll have to tell Clint, but she has a feeling that he already knows.

This Laura thinks about the fact that she married a civilian who wanted nothing to do with SHIELD’s world, and about everything he’s seen over the years. She thinks of Natasha and remembers how it had felt when Clint held her in his arms, when her son and daughter laughed for the first time, when Natasha told her she was her partner for life.

This Laura raises her head and speaks to the wall, and to everyone else in the holding cell, and says, “I’m not worried,” because she’s not.

“You’re not worried?” Sam asks, sarcasm and disbelief dripping from his tone.

“No.” This Laura smiles, because she knows and believes everything she’s going to say. “He’ll come save me. He’ll save us.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yell at me or flail at me (or with me) on tumblr @isjustprogress.


End file.
